Hey everyone, man I just can't believe all the response lately to our blogs about "Jungle" and the infamous ramp trucks.  It seems that a whole bunch of you would have liked to have been born earlier to be around the good old days of Funny Car racing.  So to satisfy your requests here's a couple more photos for you guys.

First up here's a shot from the spring of 1971.  That's "Jungle's" number two car, the red Camaro, that at the time was driven by Pete Williams (striped shirt) and the Atlas Oil Tool Maverick of "Big" John Bateman after a rainout at Englishtown. 

You might notice that the front end of the Maverick was damaged as the late, great Pat Foster, who was driving the car at the time, crashed it into the back of the tow car at a race the weekend before. The story goes that Foster was checking out a girl in the stands while towing back from a run and didn't notice that the tow vehicle had stopped in front of him.  If I remember correctly Bateman told Foster he was a no-driving son-of-a-gun and promptly fired him on the spot.  Pat then climbed into the infamous Barry Setzer Vega and the rest, as they say, is history.

Next up here are two shots of "Jungle" arriving and departing Englishtown in the summer of 1971.  As you can see "Jungle" didn't have a good day at the track that Sunday. 

I remember that run like it was yesterday.  Back then Englishtown's guardrails were set back from the track by about 20 feet with a grass strip in between the track and the barriers.  "Jungle" left the line really hard, he had a good run going then got out of shape big time.  He used every available piece of real estate trying to regain control but lost it at about 1,000 feet and rolled over once then impacted the guardrail in a spectacular crash.  He was unhurt but as you can see the body was destroyed.

You might notice that the back half of the body is missing, why?  Well yours truly snatched it up, I had planned to keep it as a souvenir but later decided to auction it off for charity to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.  I don't remember exactly how much it went for but it was a lot for back then. 

In other news it's time for the annual Performance Racing Industry trade show next week in Orlando.  This event is the biggest hard-core racing show in the country and I'll be heading out Monday again for Florida to set-up and man the Trick Tank booth.  If you're going make it a point to stop by booth #2206 and say hi.

That's it for now, hopefully I'll get a chance to blog from PRI, if not I'll type at you a week from Monday.

BB